Chapter 19 #2
Pro tip—know your surroundings before you start a fight. I slid under his arm, caught his wrist, and wrenched hard. The bones gave with a clean, satisfying snap.
I cut off his scream by crushing his windpipe with my elbow.
Behind him, one of his companions went for the wounded man on the ground, thinking a dying human would make good leverage.
Nico intercepted him, shoulder driving into the male’s side.
They crashed to the ground together, Nico’s hand clamped around the other vampire’s throat, pinning him down like a misbehaving child.
His eyes had gone flat, pupils blown wide with bloodlust.
“Bad idea,” Nico said, then slammed his head against the stone.
Enough times, his skull came apart.
The third one came from behind.
The air shifted, a shoe scraped against slick stone. I didn’t turn. I simply kicked backward, heel connecting with his knee. The joint buckled with a wet pop, sending him sprawling. I followed, driving my elbow into his face, then forcing his head to the side until I heard the vertebrae grind.
He shrieked and clawed my wrist as my hand banded around his throat.
I met his eyes. “You went hunting in my city,” I hissed. “Every soul in this city, whether vampire, mortal, witch, or otherwise, is under our protection during the Blood Compact. Do you know what happens to bloodlines that insult my father’s hospitality?”
He spat blood at me.
Fine.
I twisted harder, and his neck snapped like dry wood.
The leader wrenched himself free of the wall, his broken wrist dangling uselessly.
He bared his teeth, wild and desperate now.
“You act like you’re already king,” he rasped around his crushed larynx.
“You’re an imposter wearing a crown that doesn’t belong to you.
Your sire stole that crown, just like he’s stolen everything else. ”
Silver flashed in the dark, his good hand moving, the flick of a wrist.
I caught the knife mid-spin, then was on him, driving him backward until his spine met stone. My forearm pressed across his chest, pinning him; my other hand gripped his jaw, forcing him to look at me.
“I don’t need a crown,” I grinned as I leaned closer. “I only need you to understand one thing.”
His gaze flickered, confusion momentarily overriding his rage. “What’s that, stronzo?”
“I do own this city, and I am its judge, jury, and executioner.”
I drove my hand up beneath his ribs, fingers punching through flesh and bone as if they were wet paper. His eyes went huge, disbelief freezing on his face when I closed my fist around his heart.
Which beat one last, desperate time against my palm as he watched.
Then I squeezed.
The light went out of his eyes as I crushed that organ into pulp, then yanked my hand away, let him slide down the wall, his ruined body crumpling in a bloody, boneless heap.
Behind me, the last body hit the ground with a dull thud. Nico exhaled, the sound coming out as a pleased little huff. “What a mess,” he grumbled, looking me up and down. “You’re getting sloppy, my friend. You usually leave me with more.”
“Next time, I’ll let you have them all,” I replied, cleaning my hand on the leader’s coat before stepping back.
The alley reeked of blood now, heavy and cloying. My favorite suit was ruined, my boots, too.
The human man groaned, trying to push himself upright. The girl lay where she’d fallen, breathing slow and steady, deep in compelled sleep. The third hadn’t moved, watching us both between a fall of pale hair. In shock, most likely, which would make this next part easier.
Nico nudged one of the dead vampires with his boot. “What do you want to do with the bodies?”
“Canal,” I decided automatically, then shook my head.
“No. Their line needs a sterner warning.” I pulled my phone from my coat and snapped a quick picture of the leader’s face, typed in our location, then hit send.
“We’ll send this to the Brotherhood. Let Severin deliver the message and sort this out.
I don’t have the patience for this shit. ”
Nico whistled low as I slid my phone back into my pocket. “Remind me never to get on your bad side.”
“You’ve been on my bad side since we were thirteen, asshole.”
He grinned, bright and sudden, all the lethality bleeding out of him now that the fight was over. “And yet, here I still stand. You and me. Friends forever,” he chirped, forming his bloody fingers into a fucking heart.
“You really need professional help,” I muttered, but there was no heat to it.
Nico was the one person whose presence never felt like a chore.
He had been there for every harsh lesson my father had hammered into me, every brutal night of training, every quiet moment when I’d wanted to drown this whole cursed city and walk away.
He’d stayed by my side when my brother died, and everyone else had bowed to my father.
I knelt beside the human man. His pulse fluttered beneath my fingers, faint but present, and I fed a faint thread of magic into him, just enough to seal up his wounds and stop the bleeding. “Easy,” I soothed when he flinched away. “You’re going to be fine.”
His eyes struggled to focus on my face. “Wh-what…?”
“You and your friends were attacked by muggers,” I explained, wrapping my glamour around his consciousness like silk. “You fought them off. You’re going to go back to your hotel, sleep this off, and in a few months, tell the story to your friends over too many drinks. You’ll be a fucking hero.”
His eyes glazed. “Muggers,” he repeated groggily. “I’m a hero?”
“That’s right.” I helped him to his feet, steadying him when his knees buckled. “Follow the sound of the bells. When you get back out onto the Riva degli Schiavoni, flag down a Carabinieri, and have them escort you back to your hotel.”
Nico was crouching beside the girl, touching her shoulder, his voice low and soothing.
“You’re safe,” he told her. “You came down this alley by mistake. You and your friends were mugged, but you’re heading straight back to your hotel now.”
She nodded slowly, panicked breathing evening out. Nico moved to the third victim, offering her his hand and touching her cheek, her eyes turning hazy. The three of them staggered to the mouth of the alley, then only the water and the distant creak of wood against stone remained.
“You were very good with them,” I observed.
“Don’t you dare tell a soul,” He warned. “I have my monstrous reputation to maintain.” Nico wiped his hands on his trousers and leaned back against the wall, looking at me like he had far more to say but just couldn’t fucking wait to say it.